Can you imagine anything better than a Full Carbon Fibre (Fiber) Trifoiler?

After a frustrating few days on the water in light winds and not foiling (while a few moths were!), I am now thinking very seriously about slowly fabricating all the parts for my TF in CF over time.

I don't want to change the design - I think the boat is so brilliantly designed as it is. Even rigging / de-rigging is so satisfying appreciating the design work that Greg / Dan put into her. Even the way she & her parts mount to the trailer is brilliant!

So my questions are, has anyone or the factory guys ever made some CF parts for the Trifolier?

How much weight would be saved? I am guessing if everything but the crossbeam was CF the boat would weight about half what she does now.

Please correct me if it sounds off but I'd be guessing the wind needed to foil would drop down to around 6kts.

Dan - would the factory entertain producing & selling (on a per order basis) relatively easy to produce out of CF parts such as foils & Amas?

The Hobie TriFoiler as it was designed for production knowingly had many compromises in the design. The current configuration is geared for two purposes, 1; a very high top end speed. 2, a user friendly boat to rig and sail.The Hobie TriFoiler is an amazing boat, it gives the owner the most speed per dollar of any production boat made in the world. To keep the cost low for a consumer produced recreational boat, no CF was used, nor has there been any serious requests.

The Hobie TriFoiler was designed after Long Shot. Long Shot holds world speed sailing records for her time. The boat was constructed with a lot of carbon fiber. Some of the parts that were not carbon include the Main Hull, amas, and the leading and trailing edges of the foil shaped crossbeam. Long Shot weighed roughly 200 pounds. Although it had a much higher top end speed, the majority of its speed potential came from how small the foils are and aerodynamic features of all the spars. Although Long Shot only weighed 200 pounds, it still required over 10 knots of wind to get air born.

Now we all know that light weight is key to performance, and this is true especially for light wind takeoff speeds. The Moth is a perfect example of the most simplest form of a foiling boat. The class rules for a Moth prevent the boat becoming more lively for a sooner takeoff. The next level in a super moth is called Mirabaud LX, which is a Moth on steroids. 6 knots of wind for take off is quite low. I believe I have managed to sustain flight for a short while in 6, but that was after already getting over the bow wave which required a better than 8 knot gust for 30 seconds. Although it was fun and what I remember most about it, was the total lack of wind noise. I was sailing really deep going about 10 on the speedometer. In hind sight, there is no big deal about sailing 2 times the wind speed of 6 to 8 knots of wind. It just doesn’t seem too exciting after going warp speeds and the roar of the wind blasting through your hair.

Modifying a Hobie TriFoiler for maximum takeoff in my opinion would require extensive changes. The following would have to be bigger: foils, amas, and both sails or convert to hard rigs. I would shape the crossbeam and compression strut into foil shapes and eliminate the booms, and sail link.

Hobie Cat is not interested in making custom boat parts. To do it right, would mean new molds, for the low level of demand, we could not justify the time and money to explore this adventure. The next step to sailing fast is in the works. Stay tuned.

Hey TFG can you shed a little light on that "next step" comment? I'd like to have the option of high speed with passenger and I've been on the fence about a used tri-foiler a couple of times. Without going into detail the specific logistics tradeoffs of the foiler have been too much. I had two AIs and dropped one in fall to make room for a TI. The whole reason I've got the AIs was that unlike the windsurfers I can take the boys (now 6 and 4 but started going out at 2). That next step could be a winner for me.

I would love to share some dock talk, but I have sworn to keep the boat locker hatch on until the patent is filed. We don't want to leak our technology to the Americas Cup syndicates. Can you imagine how much Larry Ellison would pay for the chance for a speed advantage like this? Whoa!!

Revpaul,The next step to fast foiling can be shown at Don M.'s website. Greg's latest foiler design uses a foil system like the one seen, except it will have a bi-plane rig and a code 0 for ultra light wind. http://project.kiteboat.com/The project has been postponed all year due to the builder being totally side tracked with other interests, he bought a 60' cat called Tang, he has been out of his country playing around.